novelraw Chapter 108: The Chinook
Chapter 108: The Chinook
The snow melted faster than anyone had expected.
Two days ago, the cabin had been a fortress against the cold, frost curling up the edges of the window glass, and the path to the woodshed a misery of crunching boots and stinging air. Now, water trickled down the slope in thin streams, cutting across the half-frozen ground and carrying away the white that had seemed permanent.
The air was soft, almost gentle, and carried a warmth that felt like betrayal.
Seraphina stood by the doorframe, her arms crossed loosely in front of her as she watched the wet ground steam in patches where the sun touched.
Her creature stirred faintly inside, unsettled not by danger, but by the strangeness of the air. Winter was supposed to mean predictability. Cold, scarcity, silence. This felt like an interruption—like the season had stepped aside without warning.
But at the same time, everyone in Country N looked forward to the moment this weather came. It was always in winter sometime, and the temperature rose by almost 20 degrees in a single day. Yeah, as much as everyone knew about the Chinook coming, that didn’t mean it didn’t take them by surprise.
Inside the cabin, Noah made a show of peeling off his jacket. He tossed it over the back of a chair with a grin that was half relief, half complaint. "Almost feels like summer break. If I hear a single bird start singing, I’m going to think we’ve been dropped into another world."
"You’ve already been dropped into another world," Lachlan muttered, pushing past him with a dripping axe. He had gone out that morning to split wood, only to find the logs sweating under the warmth. His flannel was rolled up at the sleeves, forearms bare, and he looked more irritated than grateful. "Won’t last long. Chinook winds never do."
"Chinook," Noah repeated, testing the word on his tongue like it was something exotic. "Sounds like the name of a bar."
That’s right, Sera forgot that Noah has just arrived from Country A. He never would have experienced this weather before.
Elias, seated at the table with a book open and his glasses sliding down his nose, didn’t even look up. "It’s not exotic. It’s science. Warm wind that drops over the Rockies and pushes across the plains and then some. Perfectly ordinary. Happens every year."
Noah arched a brow. "Ordinary? Look outside. It’s December. The snow’s vanishing. You people call this ordinary?"
Elias finally looked up, his gaze sharp despite the mildness of his tone. "In Country N, yes. It’s ordinary. People in the prairies expect it. Some even count on it to break the monotony of winter. Of course, you wouldn’t know that."
Before Noah could fire back, Lachlan leaned one shoulder against the wall and smirked. "What Elias is trying to say is, stop acting surprised. This is just the land reminding us she’s got her own tricks. You get a week of fake summer, then it all goes back to hell."
Elias closed his book, sliding the glasses up the bridge of his nose with deliberate patience. "Except this year it might not. We’ve had strange patterns for months. Early snows, late freezes. The odds of a green Christmas are higher than most winters."
He let that linger, then added with a sideways glance at Lachlan, "I told you this winter wasn’t going to be harsh."
Lachlan gave him a look caught between annoyance and amusement. "You say a lot of things, Doc. Half of them I ignored."
Seraphina shifted her weight, letting their voices wash over her.
She wasn’t sure which unsettled her more—the sudden thaw, or the way they talked about it as if it were both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. To her, warmth meant movement. Growth. And growth meant food. She could already smell the faint, sour stirrings of earth beneath the melting snow, the reek of damp soil and rotting leaves that had been buried too long. Her instincts catalogued it all, even when her human mind wanted to brush it off.
Noah flopped onto the couch, stretching like a cat in the sun. "I’m not complaining. I’ll take a green Christmas over freezing my ass off any year. Hell, maybe I’ll string some lights outside, really set the mood."
"You’d waste electricity for that?" Elias’s voice was sharp again, though his eyes stayed on the closed book in front of him. "We’re not children playing house."
"Light’s not a waste," Noah countered, turning his head lazily toward him. "People need it. Makes the dark easier."
Lachlan let out a low laugh. "Mate, you’d light the whole cabin up if you could. Good thing Sera’s the practical one around here, or we’d be spotted from orbit."
Seraphina didn’t answer. She only kept watching the steaming yard, the water trickling down the slope. The warmth seeped through the walls, carrying with it something almost nostalgic, but not safe.
Nothing was safe at the moment.
Alexei rose and crossed to the window, pulling aside the curtain just enough to look out. His expression didn’t change, but his reflection in the glass caught Seraphina’s attention. Thoughtful. Calculating. "It’s not just weather," he said after a moment. "It’s timing. When the land behaves outside expectation, it tells you something. We should be paying attention."
Noah snorted. "You want to turn it into a prophecy? It’s wind, Alexei. Warm wind. Feels good. That’s all."
Alexei ignored him. His gaze flicked briefly toward Seraphina, then away, as though he expected her to confirm what he already suspected. She didn’t. Not yet.
Lachlan dropped the axe by the door and shook his head, wiping sweat from his brow despite the season. "Prophecy or not, I’ll take the reprieve. Easier to move, easier to work. Less firewood burned. Don’t waste it complaining, Snowflake."
The conversation dissolved into small arguments—Noah’s sarcasm clashing with Elias’s dry logic, Lachlan cutting in with practicalities as Alexei continued to look out the window next to Sera.
Seraphina stayed quiet, letting their voices fill the room like background noise. Her creature pressed forward, curious at the shift in air pressure, the smell of change. It didn’t like unpredictability. Neither did she.
When Noah finally stood and stretched again, muttering about checking the shed for anything salvageable, the others followed. The warmth was a gift, temporary or not, and none of them wanted to waste it. Outside, the last pockets of snow melted into slush, leaving the ground slick and uneven.
Seraphina lingered a moment longer in the doorway, her eyes narrowing on the horizon. If the land was shifting, it wasn’t for their comfort. Nature didn’t care about their ease, their holidays, or whether they wanted a green or white Christmas.
Her creature whispered the same truth it always did: nothing stayed easy for long.
It was just a matter of preparing for when shit hit the fan.